Authors: Jennifer Dunne
MustLoveMusic (9 page)
She opened the cabinet on the wall and looked inside.
Rikard’s face looked back at her.
Gayle screamed. Backing away, she bumped into the vanity,
and sat on a duck. It quacked an insulting raspberry at her.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs.
“Gayle? What is it? What’s…” Rikard’s question faded into
silence, as he saw the open cabinet. “Oh.”
“Oh? That’s all you have to say? Oh?”
She forced herself to look inside the vanity cabinet again.
It wasn’t his head on the shelf. It was an incredibly realistic mask, complete
with hair, on a foam head. In fact, except for the fact that it had no eyes,
and ended at the upper lip, it looked exactly like Rikard.
There was another mask beside it, but this one rested on a
plaster head that bore Rikard’s features. The second mask was made of clear
plastic, with eye and nose holes and a tiny opening around the mouth, although
half of it had been painted white in the style of the Phantom of the Opera’s
mask. Heavy straps secured it to the plaster head.
She shook her head. No. Impossible. And yet…
“Take off your Master’s mask, Rikard.”
His hesitation was all the confirmation she needed.
“I’ve never seen your face, have I?”
“Not all of it, no.”
“You lied to me.”
“No!”
“What do you call that?” She stabbed an accusing finger at
the face in the cabinet.
He sighed, and pulled off the leather mask she’d grown so
accustomed to seeing. She didn’t know what to expect, but the features he
revealed looked almost exactly like the ones she was familiar with. The only
difference was on the left side of his face. Dark purple-red scar tissue
covered from the corner of his eye to just below his cheekbone, shining dully
in the florescent light.
“I call that a memory,” he answered softly.
She hadn’t asked, but he removed his gloves as well. His
right hand, which she’d seen holding his razor, was as beautiful and graceful
as she recalled. His left hand, though, was covered with a mix of thin white
scars and shiny patches of scar tissue, especially across the palm.
“When the truck exploded, I instinctively threw my arm up
across my eyes. It probably would have killed me if I hadn’t. But that limited
the third-degree burns to my cheek, instead of my entire face. And my arm. I
also got shards of glass in my arm. They were so busy making sure I didn’t
bleed to death, lose my hand, or lose my eye, they didn’t have time to worry
about cosmetics.”
He spoke in a toneless, matter-of-fact voice. Yet she could
feel his pain and terror, the agony of being engulfed in a fireball, followed
by the pain of recovery. Absently, she massaged her aching left hand.
His gaze tracked her motion, and a wry smile twisted his
lips. “Sorry.”
Abruptly, the sensations stopped.
She fumbled behind herself, searching for the edge of the
counter to grip, scattering obscenely cheerful ducks in her blind quest for
something stable and real to hold onto. “You did that. You made me feel…what
you felt?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t mean to. It’s this thing I’ve been
able to do since the accident. I picture something in my mind, and when I
speak, people see it in their minds, too. For some reason, you seem to pick up
on things even when I’m not trying to send them.”
As he calmed down, the scar on his cheek faded to a dull
pink, barely darker than his natural skin tone.
She frowned. Was it fading because he was growing calmer, or
had it faded because he was no longer transmitting a mental image of what he
believed his scar looked like?
This was insane. She couldn’t believe she was actually
considering his explanation. And yet, it explained so many things she hadn’t
even thought to question. If the accident had happened the way she’d felt it…
She shook her head, and stared at him. If she believed him,
that she’d experienced what he’d experienced, then he’d been driving alone in
that car.
“Who was with you when the accident happened?”
“No one.”
“But when we were rehearsing ‘Not a Day Goes By’, you said
you’d lost your girlfriend in the accident.”
“Actually, I think I said I lost my love.” He closed his
eyes and drew in a deep breath. Gayle instinctively braced herself for whatever
further revelation he was about to toss her way.
“I was a jazz pianist. An interpretive singer and
songwriter. That’s all I ever wanted to be, since I started taking piano
lessons when I was three years old. I performed at music festivals around the
world, and was just starting to build a real name for myself. My first CD had
been released, to critical acclaim and decent sales, and I’d started working on
a second one. I was sure I was one step away from success beyond my wildest
dreams.”
He swallowed audibly, and lifted his left hand, closing and
opening it.
“I can’t play anymore.”
Gayle shook her head. “I heard your recording for Amanda
Tiegg.”
“Track after track of one note at a time, layered on top of
each other. It takes forever, but when it’s done, you can’t tell they weren’t
played together. I build the bass that way, then play the treble against it,
and record the words last. You must have noticed I only play the right hand
line when we rehearsed your songs.”
“Well, your left is usually occupied.” She blushed. “I
Googled you, and nothing came up about a CD.”
“It was under Richard, not Rikard. The marketing gurus
thought that would sell better. If I’d known it was going to be my only CD, I’d
have insisted on my own name.”
“Oh.” Quickly, she changed the topic. “What’s the other mask
for?”
“I had to wear it for two years after the accident, pressing
against the skin of my face so that it wouldn’t grow back all knobby and
gross.”
“Didn’t that hurt?”
“Compared to burning the skin off in the first place? No.
Eventually, I found it comforting. The same with the gloves. It started as a
pressure glove. When I no longer had to wear it, I found I wanted to wear a
glove.”
He didn’t say it, but she could hear the unspoken end to
that thought. He wanted to hide his scars, from the world, but more
importantly, from himself.
She took a deep breath. “So that’s why you didn’t want to go
out?”
He nodded. “I knew wearing that mask would be lying to you.
And that’s the real reason I didn’t want you to go with me on my trip. I knew
you’d notice it, confined to a car for eight hours. You almost spotted it on
our first date, when the latex adhesive started to come loose.”
“Your lip wasn’t peeling.”
“No. The mask was separating. The hot coffee, the steam, or
both loosened the adhesive on the lip.”
“Swear to me that that’s the only thing you’ve lied about.”
Rikard blinked. “What?”
“You lied about not being scarred. Did you lie about
anything else?”
He frowned, thinking hard. “No. Just about that, or anything
that touched on that, like not being able to play the piano anymore.”
“And since the secret came out, everything you’ve told me is
one hundred percent true?”
“To the best of my knowledge, yes.”
Was this the secret he’d tried so many times to tell her
after they made love? Or had it been this lie that kept him silent?
“Do you love me?”
He blinked again. “What?”
“It’s a simple question. Do you love me?”
“Yes.” He shrugged his shoulders and stared at his feet.
“But I understand—”
“No, you don’t.”
“What?”
She smiled, and captured his hands in hers. Both hands, the
one clutching the safety and security of his black leather mask, and the one
revealed in all the scars of reality.
“If you don’t stop saying ‘What?’ I’m going to think that
accident affected your hearing.”
His mouth moved, but he stopped the word before he actually
spoke it.
“As I was saying, you don’t understand. I love you, too. Or
I’m pretty sure I could, if you let me close enough to find out. Will you do that?”
His eyes widened. Without his mask in the way, she could see
that the scar pulled down the corner of his eye, which was why his left eye
wouldn’t open as wide as the right one. “But I lied to you.”
“Yes. You did. Are you going to do it again?”
“No.”
“It’s okay, then.”
He blinked rapidly. “You’re not leaving?”
“I’m not leaving.”
She released his hands, stepped forward, and cradled his
face in her palms. He stiffened, eyes wide in panicked alarm that slowly
changed to wonder as he realized she was not reacting with horror to the touch
of his scarred flesh.
Leaning in, she brushed his lips lightly with her own,
sealing her pledge.
“Now, can I finally get to spend time with just Rikard,
instead of Master Rikard?”
“Whatever you want.” He held out the mask to her. “I don’t
have to wear this if you’d prefer.”
“Keep it. I think it’s kind of sexy. Just don’t wear it when
we’re not actually playing.”
“You really don’t mind…?” He gestured weakly toward his
cheek.
“Honestly, it’s not as bad as you think it is. When you’re
not upset, it’s hardly even noticeable. And even when it is, it’s no worse than
a birthmark would be.”
“You’re amazing. You have no idea. What can I do for you to
show you how much this means to me?”
“Well, I am kind of hungry. And breakfast smelled
delicious.”
“Shit!”
That wasn’t the reaction she’d expected. Before he could
elaborate, the strident bleep of the smoke alarm made his explanation for him.
“Go!” She shoved him toward the door.
He raced for the kitchen, and whatever disaster had occurred
there. Idly, she wondered if his racing to clean up kitchen disasters caused by
her distracting him was going to be a pattern of their lives together.
Considering how much she usually enjoyed his distractions, she kind of hoped
so.
Bending down, she picked up the mask he’d dropped in his
flight. She cleared a space among the fallen ducks, and set the mask on the
vanity counter. They weren’t going to need that. Not today. But tonight…she was
in the mood for a pirate captain and a very saucy lady.
Jennifer Dunne is the author of over a dozen novels and
novellas spanning the genres of fantasy, science fiction and romance. (She’s
either a unique individual who is difficult to categorize, or easily bored—you
decide.) Beyond that, there’s no point describing her hobbies or activities,
since they’ll have changed by the time you read this. (Score one for “easily
bored”.) She lives in upstate New York, where she happily plays the lead role
in her very own love story, thankfully with fewer explosions, occult happenings
and dire situations than in her fiction. Although, there was that one time…
Jennifer welcomes comments from readers. You can find her
website and email address on her
author bio page
at
www.ellorascave.com
.
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Jennifer
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